


Familiar

by bbguns554



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Pining, Thinking, figuring stuff out, gay thoughts, hindsight being 20/20, late night walks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-31
Updated: 2016-05-31
Packaged: 2018-07-11 11:40:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7048183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bbguns554/pseuds/bbguns554
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve takes walks at night to clear his head.  He's not sure it's working, but maybe soon he will get the courage to face what he has tried so long push down inside himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Familiar

Sometimes Steve thinks too much. Being cooped up in his apartment can’t be healthy, so he takes walks. It started innocently enough – just a long, nighttime walk to clear his head, the quiet of the city at night, even though it’s never quiet, not really, not like it used to be. He misses the past, not because it was that great, but because it was familiar. Mostly he misses Bucky. 

Growing up with Bucky had been bittersweet. Buck was always there to help him out with bullies, which was a lot because Steve could not let injustice stand, could not let people, no matter how much larger than himself, pick on others. Steve had practically worshipped him. He was always taller than him, and stronger. Bucky was the older brother Steve had always wanted; a protector, a friend.  
Steve sometimes walks all night. The night gives him the luxury of anonymity. He walks everywhere, places he’s been to before and some new places as well. He tries to steer clear of anywhere too linked to his past; he’s still working on that. Working on coming to terms with what happened, what he lost, what he can’t get back. 

Some night Steve stops minor crimes. He enjoys the tactile fight most minor muggers give before they realize they messed with the wrong guy. It makes him feel good to take action, to do something so simple that helps individuals on a personal level. He thinks it might be a distraction, or it might be his small way of trying to make amends. He has a lot to make amends for. 

Even the simple pleasure of stopping muggers and more insidious street crimes cannot distract him for long though. In the end he is left with his thoughts. Sacrifices he made to be here and amends he has no way to make, not in a meaningful way. 

Growing up with Bucky had been bittersweet. Steve had envied him his form, his height, his carefree attitude. Sometimes, when he though Bucky wouldn’t notice, Steve would look at him, study him. He told himself that it was for his art, but deep in his gut he thought it might be a bit more. Steve was unsure how Bucky had chosen him, but too grateful to really question it. 

After Steve’s mom had passed, Bucky would come over more often. They would scrape some dinner together, hang out on the sofa Steve had in the main room, listen to the radio or just talk. Sometimes they would go out on walks together, go to the boardwalk and get hot dogs and cotton candy. Sometimes Bucky would sleep over if he had too much to drink and didn’t want to go back to his parent’s. They would share Steve’s narrow bed, Bucky too far gone to care, Steve too compliant to say no, even if it made Steve feel weird. He had liked sleeping next to Bucky, occasionally wrapped in his arms but always touching in some way. 

Steve remembered wanting to reach out in some way, to memorize the form sleeping behind him, to touch Bucky’s face or feel the muscles in his arms. Steve remembered too much, the longing he still wasn’t ready to face down. The guilt, the shame of wanting something so forbidden; had felt to him like his entire being was betraying itself. Steve still isn’t sure why he wanted so badly to reach out, he can’t wrap his head around the implications. 

The nightly walks helped clear his head. Helped him overcome his fear of letting go too much of the past. So many things had changed. It made him ache sometimes to think of what he kept buried back then out of fear, what he still kept buried. Maybe if he had grown up in this time he would be different, honest with himself at least. 

Steve decides that tonight is the night to visit the old neighborhood. He walks with purpose and arrives sooner than he thought he would. It startles him how much things have changed. He had thought he was prepared. Most of the good brick buildings are still there, a little worse for wear. It doesn’t smell the same, not like home. He didn’t know what he expected, but something is loosening in his chest. 

Bucky had been his biggest champion, always trying to help him out in the ways that he knew how. Setting Steve up with lovely dames, even if they weren’t interested, had been his way of showing how he cared. Steve used to like it best when they would go to the pictures together, just the two of them. He liked sharing popcorn with Bucky and getting to sit right next to him. During the picture sometimes Steve would watch Bucky out of the corner of his eye instead of the movie. Sometimes he thought Bucky looked back. He had longed for them to exist in a vacuum, to always feel as safe as he did with Bucky. 

Steve walked past his old building without noticing. Everything was so different, so modernized. He turned back to look at his old place. He only stays outside for a minute or so before turning around and heading back. The sun will be up soon.

 

He could come to terms with the fact that he had been in love with his best friend, though it still felt like a betrayal of the brotherhood they had shared. Steve could get over that, he really could, but he couldn’t get over the part where he had left Bucky out in the snow. They had searched, but if only he had been faster, stronger, better at his job, the only job that mattered in that moment, the search wouldn’t have been necessary. He could have saved his best friend. Sometimes he dreams he did save him, others he watches Bucky fall in slow motion.  
All this is made worse by the fact that Bucky hadn’t died from the fall. Whatever HYDRA had done to Buck had allowed him to survive the fall only to be taken back into their labs and experimented on.

Steve doesn’t want to think about this now, he can’t. He is in far too public a place to deal with any of this right now, so he runs. The sky is lightening by the time he makes it back to his apartment, but he doesn’t feel better. He takes a shower and tries to lie down, but he can’t stop thinking about the Winter Soldier. He can’t stop turning over his thoughts again and again.  
Steve just wants his friend back, most of his are dead anyway. If he could just have Bucky, he reasons, he would be okay with the shiny newness of the future. He falls into a fitful sleep.

 

Steve wakes with a start. Something is wrong, something is of; someone is in his apartment. The chair on the other side of the bedroom is occupied by a man in a baseball cap with long hair, the bill of the cap obscuring the face, but Steve knows who that body belongs to, even if he no longer knows the mind. The man moves, removes the cap as Steve stands up and walks over to him. 

With a shaking hand Steve finally reaches out and touches. He feels the cold metal through the long sleeve of the jacket, and he looks into eyes as familiar as his own. He feels at home.


End file.
